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Indexed: The Big Indexed

[One of my favorite web sites is indexed. The author, Jessica Hagy, conveys ideas using simple mathematical objects like graphs and Venn diagrams. This form of representation is easily understood due to its visual nature. Since imitation is the greatest form of flattery, I’ve decided to create some images that are appropriate to this blog.]

Oak was slow and had no leaping ability. But he was all about positioning and strength and intimidation. Definitely feared.
You guys remember positioning, strength and intimidation in a Knicks uniform, don’t you?

The Rockets swept them in the playoffs, and in the 4 games Olajuwon scored 35, 31, 34, and 31 points.

I don’t disagree with the original statement, but this is a bad rationale. Houston swept them in the Finals, not just the playoffs. by this logic, LeBron’s not feared because San Antonio swept them in the Finals.

The same statistics are not available for players from every era. Theyd didn’t track turnovers for instance until the early eighties. They also introduced the three point line. So it’s difficult to make cross generational comparisons. It’s not impossible though..

Using Wins Produced, David Berri eatimate that that the two most productive players of the modern era are Jordan and Magic.

And in other posts he argues that Wilt was probably equally productive. He also says that if you consider Bird strictly a small forward he would be up there as well, (although he played a lot of power forward.)

The same statistics are not available for players from every era. Theyd didn’t track turnovers for instance until the early eighties. They also introduced the three point line. So it’s difficult to make cross generational comparisons. It’s not impossible though..
Using Wins Produced, David Berri eatimate that that the two most productive players of the modern era are Jordan and Magic.http://dberri.wordpress.com/2007/06/25/magic-and-michael/
And in other posts he argues that Wilt was probably equally productive. He also says that if you consider Bird strictly a small forward he would be up there as well, (although he played a lot of power forward.)

It’s interesting that depending on where you classify Bird you get a different result. I more or less understand what Berri does, but intuitively I would consider the fact that he played both positions very well to automatically translate into making him a better player than if he just played SF great and wound up with better stats. I think versatility is a plus even if you aren’t as great at one position as another.

Sorry to go off topic again, but it’s getting boring around here waiting for camp. There is something I don’t understand about advanced statistics (or at least question).

Let take a guy like Jason Kidd. He is such a good rebounder relative to the typical PG, he tends to be rated quite highly despite his weaknesses as a shooter, fairly high turnover rate etc..

I wonder though?

Is Jason Kidd a very good rebounder or was he just on a team with such terrible big men that a lot more balls worked their way out to his position on the outside which enabled him to get the ball?

Suppose the Nets had a Dennis Rodman type player during Kidd’s best years. Wouldn’t that automatically reduce Kidd’s rebounds significantly without changing Kidd’s ability as a player?

It seems to me that to at least some degree, any player’s stats are somewhat related to specific talents of the players on the team with him.

We talked a bit about the small statistical declines of Balkman, Lee, and Curry this year. But how much of that was really them declining vs. Randolph taking more shots, getting some of the rebounds they would have gotten etc…. vs. if Frye was still out there instead?

“I think versatility is a plus even if you aren’t as great at one position as another.”

Why do you think it is a plus exactly?

There was a lot of discussion on this topic after the Rashard Lewis signing. A lot of people felt that his ability to play PF was an advantage, even though he is only an average PF because of his rebounding. To me, the ability to play out of position rarely ends up helping a team very much if at all. Almost invariably, you leave value on the table when you put a player anywhere other than when he can be optimally effective.

As for your second post, diminishing returns exist in rebounding in the NBA, as they do in other statistical categories. Berri’s conclusion is that there is a clear effect, but that it is generally a small effect. Others disagree, with wide ranging views on how big the impact of diminishing returns are. Eli Witus has written a long post on the topic. See:

Re Kidd – You can see some variation in his rebounding totals per 36. However, when you average more than 6 rebounds per game over 14 years, it’s not just the personnel you have played with. It’s pretty clear that Jason Kidd is an unusually great rebounding point guard. Now, does this help his team, or is he simply taking rebounds from his teammates without actually helping his team win. Some people make the latter argument. I think it’s sort of preposterous. If anything, I think that rebounds by point guard are probably more important than any others, because

A. they often will be long rebounds that would have gone to the other team.

B. When your point guard rebounds the ball he can immediately start a fast break, something I have seen Kidd do a thousand times.

There seems to be some statistical evidence that point guard rebounding is actually more valuable than rebounding from other positions. There was a paper published last year that makes that claim, although I haven’t seen the paper discussed at APBR or elsewhere.

Re players in general – If you look at stats long enough, it becomes very clear imho that players mostly are what they are, and not a function of who they are playing with. Player statistics are just too consistent despite changing lineups, changing teams, etc.

>>“I think versatility is a plus even if you aren’t as great at one position as another.”

Why do you think it is a plus exactly? <<

I think it’s probably the kind of thing that is only a “plus” in very specific circumstances.

Suppose you have a great SF that can also play very good PF, a very good PF, a very good SF coming off the bench, but a terrible back up PF.

If your starting PF needs a rest, gets injured, gets in foul trouble etc… you can shift your starting SF to PF and bring in the reserve SF. You may lose something at SF, but it could easily be less than you would have lost with the reserve PF.

Now when you measure that great SF as a kind of combo forward, you’ll conclude he’s not as good overall even though the team would have been worse off and his stats would have been better without the shift.

I think having that kind of versatility can be “plus” from time to time when some players are not available.